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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Manchester United Becoming another Liverpool on Financial Ground

It is no more a secret that Liverpool is going through a huge financial crisis that could, in the near future, leave them struggling to save from relegation. Liverpool fans may not like this statement, but no body can deny the reality. Liverpool’s total debt hit £351.4 million in May 2010 and the club is now struggling to pay huge interest for the bank lone. The All Reds are also struggling to keep hold on their star players like Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascheranho.

It seems that Manchester United is also going to the same direction. Their total debt reached at £1.1 billion in January 2010 and it is now well-reflected in their activities in the Summer transfer market. Though they lost Cristiano Ronaldo last summer, which many believe is the reason for losing the Premier League title to Chelsea, manager Sir Alex Ferguson could not yet attempt to bring in any quality replacement for Ronaldo. Rather, the Red Devils are planning to offload out-of-form Dimitar Berbatov.

Given the current debt of Manchester United, it is pretty much understandable that they do not have enough money in their transfer kitty to bid for someone of Ronaldo’s stature.

Moreover, Ferguson is well aware of the fact Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes are now at the near end of their career and would announce their retirement in the near future. So, the manager is also looking for quality replacements for the two long-time performers.

This is perhaps the reason, Ferguson is eyeing on young players like Mexican Pablo Barrera and Spain’s Jesus Navas hoping that they could fill up the gap left by the two veterans.

Sir Alex Ferguson signed two young players in Mexican Javier Hernandez for £10 million and England’s Chris Smalling for £10 million. Ferguson is hoping that both of them would be able to deliver for the Red Devils from their very first season, but if they can not live up to the expectations, then they could be a burden like Berbatov.

Zoran Tosic is the latest example. Ferguson signed him with high hopes, but he failed to deliver and left the club for CSKA Moscow this summer. Given their financial crisis, Manchester United does not have the liberty of experimenting with such signings.

In the Early 90’s, Ferguson got a pool of top class players like Neville brothers, Scholes, Giggs and Beckham from the youth academy and these players dominated in English football for more than a decade. However, Manchester United youth academy could not produce any quality players over the last few years.

Overall, it seems that Manchester United could face the same fate of Liverpool in future, if they can not manage to cut according to their cloths.

2 comments:

utter nonsense.. its takes someone to buy the club and its debt free. these clubs are only in debt from greedy americans. if they dont want to go under aswell.. they WILL sell sooner rather than later and then everything will be much better. No one says anything when both Real and barca are close to the 1billion in debt margin. typical bollocks from idiots.

I am guessing commenter one doesnt know the ownership structures of real madrid and barcelona or the place where they get their funds from. Please stop being ignorant. They are run on public funding and they will almost never be in a case of bankruptcy whereas the english teams are owned by individual owner and the clubs financial position is an indicator of the owners position.